Sweden's flag flies high. Or is it Switzerland's? The two countries have launched a new joint campaign to help Chinese tourists tell the difference between the European nations. (Ragnar Singsaas/Getty Images)

While the mix-up isn't solely a problem for the Chinese, it has become a particular issue for those from the Asian nation because both countries' names are written similarly in Mandarin — Ruidian (Sweden) and Ruishi (Switzerland) — and begin with the same symbol.

The piano used as the prop for the key flashback scene between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in 'Casablanca' is on display during an auction sale at Sotheby's in New York, December 14, 2012. Spanish concert pianist Laia Martin is currently on trial for playing her piano in what her former neighbor says was noise pollution. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

The neighbor, known only as Sonia B because of tribunal regulations, says she suffered from noise pollution caused by Martin's practice sessions, which last eight hours each day, five days a week, between 2003 and 2007.

Just imagine this with bigger, pointier teeth, when imagining the now-extinct Obdurodon tharalkooschild species of platypus. (OK: they measured about three feet long). (Wikimedia commons)

Platypus aren't generally known for either their ferocity or their taste for the flesh of the living, but the newly described Obdurodon tharalkooschild proves the species family had a past that was decidedly nastier. Or at least bigger.

A New Mexico man is suing the city of Deming and several police officers for allegedly forcing him to undergo an anal cavity search and other invasive procedures after a routine traffic stop. (Bruno Vincent/AFP/Getty Images)

Scrap metal tradesman David Eckert claims he was also forced to undergo three enemas and a colonoscopy after officers incorrectly assumed he was carrying drugs.

The word news most often conjures up visions of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the troubled global economy, a political crisis in Washington, erupting volcanoes and devastating earthquakes. But as we all know, there is far more to news than that. Indeed, it’s often the wacky, weird, offbeat and sometimes off-color stories that can most intrigue and fascinate us. Those stories can range from changing astrological signs to lost pyramids in Egypt but in their essence they all cast new light on the shared human condition in all of its wild diversity.